New Day,New Challenges,Different feelings

When Life Doesn’t Throw You Lemons

Here I am making a yet another comeback after months of being away. This was totally unplanned and unprecedented. I missed the WordPress world, reading other powerful articles and I missed writing. It has been a few rough months, I tried to pick myself up and write but even inspiration eluded me.

I had an outlook of how I wanted to spend my summer. I had planned to read ten books; broadening my genres further, volunteer more, learn Spanish, write an article every week for my blog since I was out of school the summer and get to know other blogs and bloggers. Alas, my outlook didn’t materialize and my reality was a lot grim.

There is the saying that “when life throws you lemons, you make lemonades”. I happen to love lemonade and so I will squeeze the juice out of those lemons to have as much lemonade as I possible could but what do you do when life throws you rotten lemons? I have always understood that expression to mean that when things don’t quite pan out, make do with the situation.

It has been a rough few weeks which I totally didn’t anticipate. The company I worked for wasn’t doing so well, so a lot hours had to be cut. The moment I got in on that information, I started looking for a supplemental/replacement job. I should have started sooner because my hours kept reducing to almost nothing and I couldn’t seem to find another one quick enough.

My friend dubbed me the “the interview pro”, that’s because at some point, I was going for at least one interview every week. Things became extremely hard, my bills kept piling up yet I wasn’t seeing a way out. Thankfully my lease was ending in May or I would have been thrown out, I had to make the hard decision to downsize from my one bedroom apartment to getting roommates.

By June, my car was almost repossessed until a family friend step in and took care of the car note for me.My last month living alone was almost a nightmare; a lot of my bills were past due which meant I had no water, no electricity, no heat, no gas, no internet. As if that wasn’t enough, things seemed to only worsen with my boyfriend and my family drama was unending.I was living a nightmarish dream which wouldn’t stop.

I am one of the most optimistic people I know; friends and coworkers would say I am that person who laughs even when nothing is funny or even when there is nothing to laugh about. In any difficult situation, I always find that I am the voice of hope, encouraging people, motivating them and assuring them that it will all be ok. But when it was time to be optimistic and stay positive for me, I checked out.

I have never been so scared in my life. I agree that there are people facing even tougher situations than I did but the truth of the matter is, our realities are different. My reality maybe a walk in the park for them whilst theirs might be a trip to hell for me. Oh the things we take for granted. Who knew not having gas to make a decent meal, or just hot water to shower or money for gas to get to an interview could be so threatening.

If that was God’s test for me, I think I might have failed woefully. I have been through a tougher situation than this but I think anytime your livelihood is threatened, you panic and that is exactly what I did. It was difficult to stay optimistic when all those interviews weren’t translating to offers, it was hard to stay positive when I wasn’t sure how I will make the rent and other bills and definitely hard to laugh when you are showering in -2 degree water in a 30 degree weather.

I should have known, as they say, hindsight is always 20/20. My God had me the whole time. I didn’t get to pay those bills. In fact, they are still piling up but the most important things that I couldn’t do without like a roof over my head or my car to take me on all those interviews were taken care of. He put people in my life who helped me just in the nick of time. They helped me out of the abundance of their hearts but I also know without a doubt that God put it in their hearts to come through for me when they did. I am so thankful to them and forever grateful to the God I serve.

I didn’t get the job I wanted but I got two part time jobs that are paying my rent and car note so far. Still looking to find something better so I can start paying off my debts (the past due bills). I thank God for the wisdom He gave me to downsize, I would have still been in the same hell-hole.

Things are beginning to look up, I am getting back to that bubbly girl that I know. Things might not get back on track fully as I want them to but I hope I don’t loose myself anymore in the chaos. I missed me too. I missed the girl who bursts into spontaneous laughter at silly thoughts, who makes light of every situation, who sometimes cries and laughs at the same time. I got too overwhelmed with my issues that I slowly started leaving a sour taste with some people. I missed the motivator in me, the encourager, the supportive one.

As they saying goes better late than never; we just started July and I have decided to catch up with those goals and do as much as I can before the summer is over. This has strengthened me for any future trials which I do not hope for, shown me my true friends, taught me to be more appreciative, to never loose myself amidst the chaos and most importantly, God always has my back. He is always working intricately behind the scenes making sure I don’t drown and even if it got to that, He would rescue me. This I know for sure.